Rudy Rucker - The Ware Tetralogy

Fern looked as sexy as ever to Stahn, he almost wished he’d held off on reassembling Wendy till after he’d had one more chance to try and bone Fern. But that would have been futile anyway, as Fern was back with her old boyfriend Ricardo.

Darla talked about Joke moving in with the artist Corey Rhizome, Darla hadn’t been too happy about it at first, but now she’d gotten to liking Corey again. Yoke said she was going to spend a few years on Earth, diving and studying oceanography. And then Whitey announced that he and his family were going to keep all of the Terri Percesepe ransom money.

“Wavy,” said Stahn. “ Wu wei .” Stahn didn’t feel like arguing about anything anymore. He was still having trouble believing that he was alive. And sober. It was strange to keep waking up in the morning feeling good.

Wendy was in rare form and feeling wonderful. Three days after Stahn got to the Moon, Wendy and Terri had a big time dustboarding the lunar slopes of Haemus live for the Show. Stahn channeled the event with some interest and discussed it over the uvvy with Tre, who happened to call up that evening. Tre said he was through working for Apex Images and was going into business for himself.

“We’ll be selling N-dimensional Perplexing Poultry philtres and limpwares as fine-art objects and philosophical toys,” said Tre. “Sri Ramanujan’s interested in helping me.”

“I love it,” said Stahn. “Good luck. Let me know if you need any help with Emperor Staghorn.”

Over the coming weeks, Stahn and Wendy saw a lot of Willy Taze, who was also staying at the Einstein Luna. Willy was in the process of arranging for his son Randy Karl Tucker to move up and live with him, at least temporarily. Willy figured Randy Karl could help him to repair the isopod.

“I guess then we’ll move into the ‘pod together,” said Willy. “Though I’m a little leery. Randy Karl is pretty strange.”

“So why don’t you move back into the Nest?” asked Stahn.

“The moldies won’t let me. They say they’ll kill me if I ever set foot in there again. Man, I’ve got half a mind to piece back together the xoxxin’ methodology of the Gurdle decryption and the Stairway To Heaven all by myself. Teach those kilpy slugs a lesson. But right now I don’t have time.”

“Because you and Randy’ll be so busy fixing up the isopod?”

“No, Stahn. Better. Randy Karl’s been asking about my grandfather— about old Cobb Anderson. When Jenny was still working with me, her simmie crypped us a copy of the original Cobb Anderson S-cube, and I archived it nice and safe with ISDN. Randy worships Cobb. Corey and I are going to design a humanoid imipolex body for the Cobbware to live on.”

“ Whoah ! Nobody’s ever tried that hack,” said Stahn. “Cobb’s been a bopper and a petaflop, but never a moldie.” He and Willy were sitting on the roof terrace of the ISDN ziggurat, drinking juice and staring out over the city.

“You know it, brah.” Willy looked a lot more stoked and happy than he’d been seeming to Stahn over the uvvy for the past few years. “And get this,” Willy added gloatingly. “If my new hack works, I can let my dooky son and grandfather keep each other company. I won’t have to talk to them!”

“Wavy,” said Stahn.

And as for Shimmer? She’d flown off toward Earth after delivering Stahn, and more than that, no one yet knew.

“Wake up, Phil. It’s your sister on the uvvy. Something’s happened.” Kevvie’s breath was alkaloidal and bitter in the dawn.

Phil woke slowly. He liked to take the time to think about his dreams before they evanesced. Just now he’d been dreaming about hiking again. For some reason, he always dreamed about the same three or four places, and one of the places was an imaginary range of mountains, an arc of icy little peaks that were somehow very—domesticated. Easy to climb.

“Wake up!” repeated Kevvie. Her voice was, as usual, flat and practical, though now a bit louder than before. As Phil’s eyes fluttered open an interesting thought occurred to him: maybe the mountains were his teeth. Sleepily he started to tell Kevvie his idea.

“My teeth are the mountains that—”

But she wasn’t listening. Her blue eyes were intent, her fox-face was pinched with urgency. “You talk to Jane right now,” she said, plopping the little uvvy onto the pillow next to Phil. The uvvy was displaying a tiny holographic image of Phil’s sister.

Calm, practical Jane. But today Jane wasn’t calm. Her eyes were red and wet with tears.

“Da’s dead,” quavered Jane. “It’s horrible. A wowo got him? Willow says they were in bed and all of a sudden their wowo got really big, all bright and swirly, and it jumped inside of Da and the light was shining out of his eyes like searchlights and he was yelling and then his body collapsed and the wowo sucked him inside and crushed him. Da’s gone! Willow’s covered with his blood. It’s so gnarly?” Jane’s voice twisted up an octave on the last word and she began sobbing. “I can’t believe it. Wowos are just a toy. Da and Tre made them up.”

Phil felt a savage torrent of emotions, too fast to nail down. Relief, terror, joy, wonder, sorrow, confusion. His father was dead and he was free. No old man to judge him for not doing anything with his life. His father was dead and he was alone. No stand-up old guy between him and the Reaper.

“Dead? What . . . When did Willow call you?” Phil’s eyes began throbbing.

“Just now. From the car. She’s scared the wowo might get her next. She left the house to go to the rent-a-cops. The popos. She told me to tell you and for you to call her. I’m flying out. You pick me up.”

“Wait, wait, this is all too—” Phil broke off in confusion. Kevvie, who’d been avidly eavesdropping, smiled and offered him a piece of her chewing gum. Phil shook his head no. Kevvie tended never to have the correct emotional response. In company, she had to look at other people so she’d know when to laugh.

“What are you going to do?” demanded Jane’s little face. Her pointy chin was trembling.

“I’ll call Willow, then I’ll drive Kevvie’s car down to Palo Alto, and then I’ll call you back. And yeah, I can pick you up. But—are you sure Da’s really dead? From a wowo? It’s just a fancy hollow graphic that Da made up a story about! Wowos are math and bullshit!”

“Willow said the wowo pulled Da in like it was—a garbage disposal. She said that. She’s hysterical. She shouldn’t be driving.”

“I’ll call her. I love you, Jane.”

“I love you too, Phil. Be strong. I’ll see you tonight. I’m going to the airport right now.”

Phil clicked off the uvvy and the room was quiet. His eyes felt so strange—bulging and puffy and aching. They wanted to cry, but for now they were dry. He imagined a wowo in his father’s head. Light streaming out of his father’s eye-sockets.

“Oh, poor Phil,” said Kevvie. “It’s terrible to lose your father. I want you to know that I’m here for you. But what was that about a wowo? That hologram thingie? Willow says that’s what killed your father? A ball of colored light? The real cops aren’t going to buy it. She should get a top attorney right away!”

“That’s too—” Phil began, but broke off with a vague gesture. In his mind the full sentence was, “That’s too stupid and cold of you to deserve an answer,” but he didn’t have the heart to start a fight. Kevvie’s inability to visualize other people’s feelings was so extreme that Phil had come to think of it as a clinical psychiatric condition. Indeed, Kevvie habitually chewed a popular empathy-enhancement gum in a perhaps unconscious effort to try and correct her deficit. “E-gum makes you part-of,” as the chanted commercials had it. But it seemed like the only person that e-gum made Kevvie more sensitive to was Kevvie. All these angry thoughts went racing through Phil’s head as he made the little gesture. He reminded himself that he liked Kevvie. His father’s death was filling him with irrational rage.